A tool to analyse instruments for soil governance: the REEL-framework

Juerges, Nataly; Hagemann, Nina; Bartke, Stephan

doi:10.1080/1523908x.2018.1474731

Cited by 13 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 55 publications

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“…Policies are needed for the effective protection of soils and their efficient use. Yet, current governance regimes are deficient in terms of protecting soils and ensuring their sustainable management [5][6][7]. To improve this situation, society is in need of (i) a thorough understanding of the drivers of soil degradation [8] and the societal impacts of soil management [9] so as to be able to properly assess the relevant trade-offs; (ii) an equally encompassing understanding of the processes within the soil that give rise to soil functions and ecosystem services and how they are affected by soil management [10]; and (iii) innovative governance instruments building upon a comprehensive understanding of the determinants of relevant actors' behaviour and decision-making.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Leverage Points for Governing Agricultural Soils: A Review of Empirical Studies of European Farmers’ Decision-Making

Bartkowski

Bartke

2018

Sustainability

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What drives farmers’ decision-making? To inform effective, efficient, and legitimate governance of agricultural soils, it is important to understand the behaviour of those who manage the fields. This article contributes to the assessment and development of innovative soil governance instruments by outlining a comprehensive understanding of the determinants of farmers’ behaviour and decision-making. Our analysis synthesises empirical literature from different disciplines spanning the last four decades on various farm-level decision-making problems. Based on a conceptual framework that links objective characteristics of the farm and the farmer with behavioural characteristics, social-institutional environment, economic constraints, and decision characteristics, empirical findings from 87 European studies are presented and discussed. We point out that economic constraints and incentives are very important, but that other factors also have significant effects, in particular pro-environmental attitudes, goodness of fit, and past experience. Conversely, we find mixed results for demographic factors and symbolic capital. A number of potentially highly relevant yet understudied factors for soil governance are identified, including adoption of technologies, advisory services, bureaucratic load, risk aversion and social capital, social norms, and peer orientation. Our results emphasise the importance of a broad behavioural perspective to improve the efficiency, effectiveness, and legitimacy of soil governance.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Leverage Points for Governing Agricultural Soils: A Review of Empirical Studies of European Farmers’ Decision-Making

Bartkowski

Bartke

2018

Sustainability

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“…A recent LRC paper includes a very detailed hypothetical example which indicates how quantified soil variables can be combined and converted into societal costs and benefits. By contrast, the resilience–effectiveness–efficiency–legitimacy (REEL) framework from Germany provides a purely qualitative means of comparing different approaches to soil governance according to the four criteria (dimensions) embedded within its title [ 270 ]. The REEL framework also highlights interconnectedness and attempts to address situations where policy targets mismatch the causes of problems, either spatially or in terms of scale or even time.…”

Section: The Modern Governance Of Soil Resources Worldwidementioning

confidence: 99%

Saving the ground beneath our feet: Establishing priorities and criteria for governing soil use and protection

Peake

Robb²

2021

R. Soc. open sci.

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The continual loss and impairment of soil ecosystem services (SES) across the globe calls for a fundamental reconsideration of soil governance mechanisms. This critical synthesis charts the history and evolution of national and international soil law and seeks to unravel certain challenges that have contributed to this failure in governance. It describes and categorizes law and policy responses to different soil threats, and identifies a worrying widespread absence of legislation for oversight and protection of agricultural soils from urbanization, as well as a lack of clear legal mechanisms to determine national priorities for soil protection. A reduction in the world's prime farmland threatens SES, including food security, carbon storage and biodiversity. Falling between the stalls of agricultural and environmental law, the fate of farmland is often left to planners who do not see themselves as responsible for soils. Consequently, legal instruments with the greatest power to affect soil, sometimes irreversibly, are often framed and worded with little or no reference to the soil. Nevertheless, emerging conceptual frameworks might offer positive outcomes. The authors advocate robust holistic policies of soil governance and land use planning that place SES and natural capital at the heart of decision making.

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“…We still do not understand these relationships properly in the context of soils [21]. Yet, as soils are highly heterogeneous, with their heterogeneity not being easily observable, these relationships can be expected to be highly context-specific; their assessment needs to be spatially and temporally explicit, also for the purposes of governance [23]. This biophysical complexity is further aggravated by economic and social factors, including property rights.…”

Section: Soils and Ecosystem Servicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Institutional Economics of Agricultural Soil Ecosystem Services

et al. 2018

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Who owns the soils? What seems to be a straightforward legal issue actually opens up a debate about the ecosystem services that can be derived from soils and the distribution of benefits and responsibilities for sustaining functioning and healthy soils. In particular, agricultural land use may be constrained by a lack of properly defined property rights. Using the new institutional economics perspective, we show that multifunctionality of soils and an attribute-based property rights perspective substantiate the intuition that land property implies special obligations towards the common good. The concept of ecosystem services can illustrate the variety of beneficiaries of multifaceted soil ecosystem services. This allows identification of reasons for unsustainable soil management that result from imperfections in the definition of property rights. We suggest implications for improved governance of agricultural soils using two case studies in the EU context: the EU Common Agricultural Policy and the use of planning instruments to steer agricultural soil use in Germany. Thus, we contribute to achieving the societal goals of more sustainable land use by detecting causes of shortcomings in current land regulation and by suggesting governance approaches to support a more sustainable management of agricultural soils.

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A tool to analyse instruments for soil governance: the REEL-framework

Cited by 13 publications

References 55 publications

Leverage Points for Governing Agricultural Soils: A Review of Empirical Studies of European Farmers’ Decision-Making

Leverage Points for Governing Agricultural Soils: A Review of Empirical Studies of European Farmers’ Decision-Making

Saving the ground beneath our feet: Establishing priorities and criteria for governing soil use and protection

Institutional Economics of Agricultural Soil Ecosystem Services

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